GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women's volleyball team will begin the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament against a familiar post-season foe, hosting the Colorado Christian University Cougars in the quarterfinal round at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evening in Brownson Arena.
The Mavericks are the tournament's second seed after wrapping up the regular season with a 23-3 record, equal to their best in program history. They went 12-2 in RMAC play and were tied for second place in the regular season standings but earned the higher seed thanks to a head-to-head win over Regis, the other 12-2 team in the conference standings.
Meanwhile, the Cougars also won a 3-team tie-breaker to earn the No. 7 seed in the RMAC Tournament after wrapping up the regular season with 12-14 overall and 7-7 RMAC records.
The Mavericks and Cougars also met in the opening round of the RMAC Tournament in 2021 and 2022 as well as in 2018. The Mavericks won all three of those matches but will be looking to avenge a 5-set loss to the Cougars on Oct. 21 of this season.
First serve in Tuesday's match and all four RMAC Tournament quarterfinals will be at 7 p.m.
A live pay per view stream can be seen on the RMAC Network and tickets are available for purchase through the
RMAC Tournament webpage. CMU students with their Maverick Card will be admitted free.
Live statistics can also be accessed at the link above.
Last Time Out
The Mavericks wrapped up the regular season by winning two home matches against the RMAC's two South Dakota schools over the weekend. The Mavs swept Black Hills State on Friday night before winning in four sets against South Dakota Mines on Saturday afternoon.
The Mavericks hit .351 throughout the weekend and well above .300 in both matches, as setter
Sabrina VanDeList recorded 89 assists (12.71/set) and 27 digs (3.86/set), recording her fifth and sixth consecutive double-doubles.
Outside hitter Syndey Leffler led the Mavs with 14 kills in Friday's win over the Yellow Jackets while
Savannah Spitzer added 13.
On Saturday, Leffler and graduate right side
Emma Shaddix both finished with 16 kills while Spitzer added 14 more in what was the final regular season home match of her 5-year career as a Maverick. She and Shaddix, who was also honored during pre-match Senior Day festivities, hit at a combined .571 clip in the win over South Dakota Mines.
Full recaps of both matches can be seen below.
A Streaming Note From the RMAC
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference has announced the addition of a subscription model to all 2023-24 RMAC championship broadcasts on the RMAC Network. The announcement comes after support from league leadership in the summer to implement the pay-per-view concept as a manner to offset the league's broadcasting initiatives and operations associated with championship events.
Among the RMAC fall championship sports within the subscription model are all three rounds of tournament play for men's soccer, women's soccer and volleyball. Winter sports with championship events within the league's subscription model are men's basketball, women's basketball, women's wrestling, indoor track and field and swimming and diving. Men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, baseball, softball and outdoor track and field round out the subscription events for the 2023-24 academic year.
Fans will be able to purchase day passes for each day of tournament play, priced at $9.95 per day. To purchase the day pass, fans will navigate to
www.rmacnetwork.com and will be directed to select the institution that they are supporting through their viewership. Once the payment submission is complete, fans will have access to any RMAC championship contest available for that specific sport. Day passes will expire within 24 hours of the purchase.
For technical support questions, fans may submit a support ticket with
Hudl Support or email the RMAC directly (
help@rmacsports.org).
For further support, fans can visit the RMAC Network Help page.
Tourney Time
The Mavericks will be playing in their 12
th consecutive RMAC Tournament, having qualified in all but one (2011) of the 19 seasons with Head Coach
Dave Fleming running the program. The Mavericks have won the RMAC Tournament twice under Fleming (2014, 2018) and are 17-15 in it under Fleming, who began his tenure at CMU in 2005.
The Mavs also have a winning 10-7 record in the quarterfinal round under Fleming, including a 3-1 mark against Colorado Christian, a team they defeated in both the 2021 and 2022 quarterfinal rounds.
The Mavs have won their quarterfinal match in each of the last three RMAC Tournaments, defeating UCCS in the spring of 2021 before taking out Colorado Christian in the last two years.
The Mavs are 7-3 against the rest of the tournament field this season.
The Mavs have advanced to the semifinals in each of the last three and four of the last five seasons.
The road ahead
The winner of Tuesday's quarterfinal match will take on the winner of the Regis/Chadron State 3/6 quarterfinal match-up in Friday's semifinal round, which will be played on the campus of the highest remaining seed from the quarterfinal round.
Saturday's championship match will be played in the same location.
Top-seeded MSU Denver, which won the RMAC's regular season title with an 13-1 conference record, has the inside track to that right, and would host the remainder of the tournament if they can get past eighth-seeded Westminster.
Meanwhile, fourth-seeded South Dakota Mines will host a RMAC Tournament match for the first time in program history, taking on No. 5 seed CSU Pueblo in the other top-half quarterfinal. The Hardrockers earned the home-court advantage despite falling to CMU on Saturday because they had defeated CSU Pueblo in conference play on Sept. 23. Both of those teams finished 10-4 in conference play.
The times for Friday's semifinal and Saturday's RMAC Tournament Championship have yet to be announced.
Complete tournament information can be seen on the
RMAC Tournament Headquarters page.
The complete bracket can be seen here.
History-Making team
Already having claimed 23 wins, the Mavericks have now won 20 or more matches in three consecutive seasons after going 15-1 during the COVID delayed and abbreviated 2021 spring campaign.
The Mavs have now reached 20 wins for the eighth time in 19 total seasons under Head Coach
Dave Fleming and have now recorded three consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time under his direction.
The last time that CMU had such a streak was way back in 1994-96, when the then Mesa State College Mavericks went 31-14 in 1994, 25-11 in 1995 and 26-9 in 1996.
The Mavs' other 20-win seasons under Fleming were 2005 (23-7), 2010 (20-9), 2013 (21-8), 2014 (29-4), 2018 (24-7), 2021 (21-7) and 2022 (22-7).
The Mavs' current 23-3 record is equal to the best 26-match start in program history, joining the 2014 team that had a 20-match winning streak that took the Mavs into the final of the NCAA Division II South Central Regional. That team finished 29-4.
The 2021 spring season squad went 15-1 to lead the program's history in terms of winning percentage at .938. The overall CMU record for wins in a season is 42, set by the 1986 squad that went 42-9 as members of the NAIA. Teams regularly played substantially more matches in that era.
Last year's team was 21-5 through 26 matches after dispatching of Colorado Christian in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinals. The 2021 team was also 21-5.
A chance at revenge
The Mavericks will have a chance to avenge one of just three losses this season on Tuesday against the Cougars, who ended what had been an 8-match winning streak for CMU on Oct. 21. The Cougars won the first two sets of that match before the Mavericks roared back to force a fifth.
The Mavs then had three match points in that fifth set but could not close the door as the Cougars won the marathon fifth set, 20-18 to take the match.
Despite the loss, the Mavericks posted some big statistical numbers as
Sydney Leffler had a career and match-high 26 kills while becoming the first Maverick since 2018 to eclipse the 1,000 career kill milestone. Middle hitter
Savannah Spitzer also recorded a career-high 22 kills while setter
Sabrina VanDeList had a season-high 58 assists and went over the 3,500 career assist mark.
To read the full recap from that match, go here.
25 in the Top 25
Although, the official poll will not be released until Monday afternoon, the Mavericks are sure to be included in the
American Volleyball Coaches Association/TARAFLEX NCAA Division II poll (Week No. 11) for the 25
th straight poll.
The Mavs have been ranked 11
th for the past three and five total weeks this season, holding down that spot on Week No. 3 and 4 before their recent run. They could move back into the top 10 considering the No. 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 teams in last week's poll all lost matches on Saturday while CMU went 2-0 last week
The Mavs were ranked a season-best ninth in the week No. 7 poll on Oct. 16 and were tenth in the preceding two polls (Weeks 5 & 6). The Mavs had been ranked 21
st in the preseason poll, 14
th in the Week No. 1 poll and 12
th in the Week No. 2 poll. They were also ranked in each of the last 12 of the regular season's weekly polls in 2022 before finishing 21
st in the final post-season poll. CMU was not ranked in the 2022 preseason poll but did reach as high as No. 15 in the Week #10 poll on Oct. 31 of last year.
Regional Ranking
Although the national ranking is nice in the grander scheme of NCAA Tournament selection and seeding, it is meaningless as those things are
decided by the NCAA Division II Regional Rankings, which were released for the first time in ranked order last Wednesday (Nov. 15) after ten teams from the region were listed to be "under consideration" in alphabetical order the previous week (Nov. 8).
The Mavs were slotted third in the South Central Regional rankings on Wednesday as the second of three Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference teams. MSU Denver was ranked second while Regis was fourth. West Texas A&M leads the regional rankings as the first of seven Lone Star Conference teams in the top ten, but dropped a match to unranked Texas A&M-International on Saturday and was forced to share the LSC's regular season title with Dallas Baptist, which beat Angelo State last Friday.
MSU Denver and Regis went a combined 5-0 last week while the Mavs went 2-0.
Angelo State, Dallas Baptist, Texas Woman's, Texas A&M-Kingsville, UT Tyler and Arkansas-Fort Smith were ranked fifth through tenth in last week's rankings.
A new set of regional rankings will be released this Wednesday before the final regional tournament field will be unveiled on a NCAA Selection Show, which will be aired next Monday (Nov. 20) at 5:30 p.m. on NCAA.com.
This week's rankings will not include Tuesday night's results, although the RMAC and LSC Tournament results as a whole will be factored in for the final selections.
Eight total teams will be selected and seeded based on those updated rankings with the winners of the LSC and RMAC Tournaments earning automatic bids even if they were not amongst the top eight rankings, thus making it possibly important to be in the top six of the final regional rankings to ensure qualification.
1,000 plus one
Maverick fifth-year senior
Savannah Spitzer surpassed the 1,000 total point milestone for her career in Saturday's win over South Dakota Mines. She now has 1,001 after registering 16 ½ total points in the final match of the regular season.
Total points are a way to evaluate a player's all-around strength and are calculated by adding kills, service aces and blocks with solo blocks counting as a full point while block assists counting as a half-point.
Spitzer has had the best season of her five-year career this season, recording 291 kills, 55 blocks, including seven block solos, and 24 aces. In her career, she has recorded 846 kills, 30 block solos, 162 block assists (192 total blocks) and 44 aces.
She is the tenth Maverick in the rally-scoring era (2001-Present) to surpass the 1,000 total point milestone, joining teammate
Sydney Leffler, who recorded her 1,000
th career kill against Colorado Christian. Leffler has 1,164 ½ total points to rank eighth in the rally-scoring history.
Double-double streak
Sabrina VanDeList recorded her fifth and sixth consecutive double-doubles over the weekend, recording 37 assists and 13 digs in Friday night's sweep of Black Hills State before tallying 52 assists and 14 digs in the regular season finale against South Dakota State. She now has 14 double-doubles this season.
VanDeList has now had double-doubles in eighth of the last nine and ten of the Mavs' last 12 matches. She now has 14 double-doubles this season, her highest total in four seasons with the Mavs. VanDeList now has 38 career double-doubles, ten of which were in the fall of 2021. She had eight last year and six in the spring of 2021.
Her 14 double-doubles this season are the most of any Maverick since 2017 when outside hitter MacKenzie Edwards had the same number.
Edwards also had 15 double-doubles in 2016, recording five straight from Sept. 30-Oct. 14 of that season. Caitie Breaux had 17 double-doubles in 2015, including a 5-match streak.
Setter Jordyn Moody was the last Maverick before VanDeList to record six consecutive double-doubles doing so in the final two matches of the 2014 regular season, all three RMAC Tournament matches and in CMU's first NCAA Division II Tournament win of that record-setting campaign.
No Aces Here
The Mavericks did not allow any service aces against Black Hills State on Friday after doing the same against New Mexico Highlands the preceding Saturday night (Nov. 4).
CMU then gave up just six service aces to South Dakota Mines on Saturday, an average of 1.50 per set, which is considerable less than the Hardockers' RMAC-leading total of 201 (2.14/set), which had them ranked sixth in the nation coming into last weekend.
Special Senior Day
The Mavericks honored two of their current players during Senior Day festivities held prior to Saturday's win over South Dakota Mines. Both went on to shine in the match as graduate transfer
Emma Shaddix recorded 16 kills while hitting .577 from her right side position. The 16 kills were just one shy of her career-high. Meanwhile,
Savannah Spitzer tallied 15 kills and hit .565 from her middle hitter spot.
The Mavs also recognized former player
Erin Curl during the Senior Day festivities. The 2022 Honorable Mention All-RMAC pick did not have a senior day last year and originally planned to return for the 2023 season before a late season injury changed those plans. Shaddix replaced Curl as the Mavs' starting right side this year after transferring from Florida Southern College is using a sixth year of collegiate eligibility thanks to the NCAA's blanket COVID waiver.
Spitzer is in her fifth year as a Maverick and also is using that waiver to play this season.
RMAC leaders and National Rankings
The Mavs continues to have three individuals leading the RMAC in four combined statistical categories.
Setter
Sabrina VanDeList continues to leads the RMAC by comfortable margins in both total sets and assists per set. She has 1,093 assists, 37 more than Mines freshman Presley Powell, who has 1,056 in four more sets than VanDeList (96). VanDeList is averaging 11.88 assists per set, which ranks her third nationally and well ahead of Powell, who averaged 11.00 per set. Her season is done.
VanDeList also ranks 17
th nationally in total assists.
Meanwhile,
Sydney Leffler paces the RMAC by a wide margin with 405 kills and 434 1/2 total points. MSU Denver's Riley Anderson is second with 338 kills and 384. Leffler also leads the conference with her 4.40 kill and 4.72 point per set averages. She ranks 12th nationally in kills per set and 15
th in points per set. She is 25
th in total kills. The NCAA does not do official statistical rankings for total points.
The Mavs' other RMAC statistical leader is
Savannah Spitzer, who leads the league with her .399 attack percentage, the 12
th best mark nationally.
Team rankings
The Mavs' offensive attack is also ranked highly as a team in the national statistics. They are ranked second nationally in assists per set (14.04). They also rank third nationally in kills per set (14.87) and have moved into the nation's top ten for hitting percentage (.270).
The Mavs lead the RMAC in all three categories.
The RMAC's top boss
Now in his 19
th season as the Mavs' head Coach,
Dave Fleming leads all active RMAC coaches with 366 career victories. Fleming is 366-176 in his time at CMU, good for a .675 winning percentage and reached the 350-career win milestone on Sept. 8 after the Mavs win over Sioux Falls.
The Mavs have now recorded 20 or more wins eight times under Fleming, who guided the Mavs to a 22-7 record while qualifying for their second straight NCAA Tournament appearance last year. They had gone 21-7 in the fall of 2021 after the Mavs won the 2021 spring season RMAC title while going 15-1 overall during the COVID related delayed and abbreviated schedule.
The success is nothing new for Fleming, who has now led the Mavericks to nine NCAA Division II National Tournament berths, two Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season titles (2014, 2021-Spring), two RMAC Tournament crowns (2014, 2018) and three RMAC West Division crowns (2005, 2009, 2010).
The Mavericks have had winning campaigns in all but one of his seasons and are a combined 246-92 (.728) in conference play under Fleming.
Home Sweet Home
With last weekend's wins, the Mavericks are now a strong 12-1 at home this season, with a chance to move that mark to 13-1 on Tuesday.
That Brownson Arena success is nothing new for the Mavs, who have not lost more than a single home match in each of the previous five seasons, going 8-1 last year and 52-6 (.897) since the start of 2018. The Mavs are also 88-14 (.863) in their last 102 home matches since the start of 2014.
CMU's last three home losses have all come against MSU Denver, who defeated the Mavs on Sept. 23 of last season in a tight match that saw all three sets decided by the minimum 2-point margin and again on Sept 22 of this season. The Mavs also went 9-1 at home in 2021, with their only loss coming to MSU Denver.
The Mavs also went 6-1 at home during the 2021 spring season. In the fall of 2019, the Mavs went 8-1 after going 9-1 in Brownson Arena during the 2018 campaign.
The Mavs were also 9-1 at home in 2015 before posting 6-3 home-court records in both 2016 and 2017. CMU was also an impressive 15-1 in 2014 en-route to a RMAC Tournament Championship and NCAA South Central Regional final appearance and have had winning records at home in each of the last 11 completed seasons since and including 2012, going 103-23 (.817) since the start of 2012.
About the Cougars
The Cougars will come into Tuesday's match with a 12-14 overall record and went 7-7 in RMAC play. They won a 3-team tie-breaker over Westminster and the Colorado School of Mines to earn the No. 7 seed.
They won their final two matches in four sets against the last two teams in the RMAC standings (Black Hills State, New Mexico Highlands) but have not had a 3-match winning streak all season. Conversely, they have lost three straight matches, just once.
Redshirt junior outside hitter Libby Goodman leads the team with 252 kills despite missing eight of the Cougars' matches. She is averaging 3.65 per set to rank third in the RMAC.
Sophomore Renee Phillips also has 226 kills (2.40/set) and has started all 26 matches. Four other Cougars also have 128 or more kills. Phillips is hitting .342 to rank fifth in the RMAC.
Setter Izzy Jones and Krista Traynor have combined for 971 assists as Traynor, a freshman emerged as the starter for a stretch. She has 239 (9.19/set) in seven matches and recorded 52 assists against the Mavericks in CCU's 5-set win back on Oct. 21. However, Jones, a Second Team All-RMAC pick last year, resumed her starting role in the Cougars' last two matches, recording 51 assists against Black Hills State on Nov. 4 and 44 against New Mexico Highlands on Nov. 10. She ranks fourth in the RMAC with her 10.03 assist-per-set average.
Jones also leads the Cougars with 30 service aces (0.41/set) and ranks seventh in the conference.
Defensively, Abby Breeding leads the team with 208 digs as one of an incredible seven Cougars with 100 or more digs in a balanced lineup.
Phillips has 77 blocks (0.82/set) to her credit while Lilly Woods has recorded 62 while recording 128 kills and a .279 attack percentage as one of the Cougars' top multi-threat players. Phillips and Woods are 13
th and 14
th in the RMAC for blocks per set, respectively.
Series Histories
The Mavs hold a 26-15 lead in the series with Colorado Christian during the program's NCAA Division II history (1992-Present). The Mavs had won nine straight matches in the rivalry before being stunned by the Cougars in a five-set heart-breaker back on Oct. 21.
The Mavs are 13-6 at home against the Cougars in the Division II era and have won seven straight against the Cougars in Grand Junction since the Cougars ended the Mavs' 2013 season in the RMAC Tournament quarterfinals that year. CMU has ended the Cougars season in the same round in each of the last two years and did the same in 2018 as well. Last year's RMAC Tournament quarterfinal was played.
Maverick Head Coach
Dave Fleming is 17-7 against the Cougars in his time at CMU and is 9-2 against Cougar counterpart Bobby Blanken, in his seventh season at the helm of the CCU program.
South Dakota Domination
The Mavericks continued to dominate the rivalry with the RMAC's two South Dakota schools over the weekend. They have now won 12 of the 13 all-time meetings with Black Hills State, winning each of the least seven. The Mavs are also 11-0 all-time against South Dakota Mines.
Up Next
If the Mavs win on Tuesday, they would advance to the semifinal round of the RMAC Tournament for the fourth straight and fifth time in the last six years and would play either third-seeded Regis or sixth-seeded Chadron State on Friday.
That match would be played on the campus of the highest remaining seed of the four quarterfinal winners, which would be the Auraria Events Center in Denver if MSU Denver wins its quarterfinal as the top seed. The Mavs would host the remainder of the RMAC Tournament in Brownson Arena with a Tuesday night win combined with an upset win by eighth-seeded Westminster over MSU Denver.
If the Mavericks were to fall on Tuesday, they would await next Monday's (Nov. 20), NCAA Division II Tournament selection show to see if they would earn one of the six available at-large berths from the South Central Region, still a highly likely scenario considering the Mavericks were ranked third in the latest regional rankings. They also have the region's second best overall record, behind only West Texas A&M, which is currently 25-3.
The RMAC and Lone Star Conference Tournament winning teams will earn automatic berths into the NCAA Tournament.
